


heavy is the head

by sasspan



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: F/M, Speculative, Written Pre-Finale
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-15
Updated: 2020-12-15
Packaged: 2021-03-10 23:01:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 927
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28095087
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sasspan/pseuds/sasspan
Summary: Allura, in the end days.
Relationships: Allura & Keith (Voltron), Allura/Keith (Voltron)
Kudos: 16





	heavy is the head

**Author's Note:**

> Written almost exactly two years ago, on the night before the final season dropped; originally posted on tumblr.

She dreamt of her mother. Her mother with her soft billowing hair, her soft warm hands. Her mother who smelled sweetly of perfume. Her mother, with the crown gleaming at her brow.

When Allura woke up, she reached up to feel that familiar weight, that ring of gold, around her own head. Her fingers touched bare skin between her eyes.

Oh. She remembered now.

.

.

.

.

.

There was much work to be done in the aftermath of the Garrison’s victory. Searching for the lost, the missing—getting in touch with other members of the Coalition, asking them for aide—reestablishing communications with other places on Earth that had been ravaged by the Galra. In short, it was the process of stitching together a planet that had been torn apart.

It was exhausting, but Allura was glad for it. It was good to be doing this kind of work, building and fixing and healing, rather than the constant battles it felt like her life had become. There was a sense in the air, an awareness, that they were all barreling towards the final days of this war; huge, inevitable. A wall that no one could imagine their lives beyond

(“No matter what happens,” Shiro said to them once, at the end of a strategy meeting, “I am so proud of you all. Thank you for letting me fight beside you.”

Hunk sniffled, and Coran sobbed, and Pidge threw her arms around Shiro’s midriff. He smiled down at her, hugging her back with his flesh arm as his metal hand ruffled her hair. His socket glowed blue with magic. Allura smiled, too, a little wetly; here was one regret she did not have.)

.

.

.

.

.

She tried to like it, she really did; the uniform, starch-stiff and so clean, a sign that she was a soldier, a fighter, a paladin. Gold adorned her shoulder, and not her temples. Wasn’t that what she had wanted, from the very start?

“It looks great on you, Allura,” Lance said, his voice full of unbearable adoration, his eyes full on unbearable hope. “Like you’re a real Garrison cadet.”

“Yes,” she said, trying to smile, trying to push away her disappointment. “Thank you, Lance.”

.

.

.

.

.

(“See, Allura,” her mother murmured to her. “Look at Mama’s crown.” She took Allura’s hand, so little then, and raised it to her forehead. The crystal was cool and slippery under Allura’s hot fingers. The gold band was minutely engraved, so fine that she couldn’t even see what the designs were, just feel the texture.

“Wow!” Allura breathed. “It’s so bumpy.” The queen laughed, tipping her head so her hair fell over her shoulder in a silvery-soft curtain, a curtain that cocooned them away from the rest of the world, safe, protected. Here, with her mother, Allura was so warm, so content, so loved. Her mother took her small hand and kissed it gently.

“My love,” she said. “My mother gave me this, as her mother gave it to her, and on, and on, all the way to when Altea was first born. One day you will wear it too. And when you do, I hope you’ll think of me, and of Altea.”)

.

.

.

.

.

It was hard to think ahead, to look with hope past the specter of the final battle that loomed in front of them. Not hope for victory—though that was never a sure thing—but for a shapeless future. When all was said and done, what would she do? What would she be?

Who would she be?

.

.

.

.

.

Perhaps it was silly, sentimental, to cling so tightly to the past. Altea was long buried—it was not a planet that could be stitched back together, no matter how hard she wished it so.

Still, still—she could not let go, not yet. She had already lost what little remained of her father, she had already lost the Castle of Lions, she had already lost the crystal itself. But she would not lose the circlet. She would not lose her mother again.

The circlet was in her dresser, the bottom-most drawer, buried beneath dusty dresses and her paladin armor. Allura pulled it out, ran her finger across the tiny engravings. Her heart swelled and twisted, too big for her chest, her throat. She could not bring herself to place it on her head.

“Allura?”

She turned. Keith was standing in the doorway, backlit by the hall lights. He had grown so tall, she realized. When had he grown so tall? The war seemed to have taken years from them all.

“Allura. Are you all right?"

She shook her head, and then nodded. She wasn’t—she was—she would never be.

He edged into the room with a stilted awkwardness, his arms tense at his sides. His gaze fell upon the circlet in her hands. “Is that…?”

“Yes,” said Allura, and could not continue.

Keith’s eyes softened, and he came up to her. Very gently he took the circlet from her hands. “It’s so light,” he murmured, with a touch of awe in his voice.

“Altean metal,” Allura said. She was having trouble meeting his gaze. “It was my mother’s.”

He looked at her, his eyes so dark, understanding. His finger ran the length of the circlet, to the dip where the crystal had once been, and was no longer.

“Thank you,” he said. “Princess.”

Allura opened her mouth, to say, _thank you for what_ , to say, _I’m not a princess any more_. But nothing came out. She stared at him.

Keith lifted the circlet, and, with infinite tenderness, set it on her head.


End file.
